Probably at least in part because of my terrible spelling (Thanks for fixing Catalonia). I actually meant to say "touring". Anyhow Maximum Rock and Roll used to publish this guide for bands doing a self-booked tour called "Book Your Own fucking Life". They supplied a lot of good data on where to crash, how not to get hassled by the cops, etc.. I was wondering if it might be an appropriate topic for "Other ways of seeing".. sadly though I am sometimes a bit brief when typing. -- Uchuha 09:00, 2003 Nov 10 (PST)

Winter sports

I'd like to create a "Winter Sports" field of pursuit. Where should the "start" page be for that? -- Anca 2004 Jan 20

We haven't been doing too much with fields of pursuit. But there is an article called Winter Sports. It's scheduled for Wikitravel:votes for deletion -- I made a half-assed attempt to save it, but I think if you wanted to work on it, it'd be great. We don't have a lot of guidance on how to do this kind of stuff, though. Are you at all interested in maybe starting with Winter sports in California? --Evan 20:58, 19 Jan 2004 (EST)

Travel by calendar

Travel is generally organized by destination. What would you think about a new section organized by the month of the year? So, for example, suppose you wanted to travel in January, where are the best places to go that month of the year? What cultural or national events are occuring at that time every year? Should you go south to get warm, or north to ski? Rather than edit the front page immediately with this idea I wanted to seek your feedback.

Frankly, I think that's a surprisingly good idea as another way of seeing travel. My main concerns is that people would start putting events only on the calendar-like pages, and not putting them in the destination page where they belong. Events should probably be only listed as teasers, with links to the destination where the event is happening. For example, "July 6-July 14: The Sanfermines festival, featuring the Running of the Bulls, happens in Pamplona". The Pamplona page should have the full description of the event (times, tips, location, Web site, etc.).

I can also see some difficulty with, say, activities for summer or winter or whatever. Every destination has something to do in winter, right? I'm worried that these might become either too long (listing of every single activity in every destination around the world for December), or too contentious ("The best beaches for December are in Australia, not Cuba!").

Why don't you start January, February, etc., and we'll start adding things to them. Once the pages become really full of info, we can link to them from Main Page. -- Evan 08:32, 11 Nov 2003 (PST)

Perhaps article templates can include a 'When To Visit' headline, and instructions on how to format that data. Then the software could be modified to collate the data from articles across the site to create a travel calendar. Incidentally, I am planning a Death Valley trip for January, which is good timing, and a Prague trip for February, which may be very poor timing. TimShell

We should distinguish between specific events, and general "when to visit" information. I do agree that on any such listings, only teasers should be included. All the details should be on the location pages. Nils Jan 8th 2004

Travel Planning Hierarchy

What I really think these topics need is a hierarchy. I suggest starting an article Travel Planning which should be the top level for the Alternate ways of seeing travel and this would be linked to on the front page of Wikitravel. This would then link to a list of itineraries these would be sorted by subject rather than by geography, fields of pursuit againby subject, and the calendar idea. I agree that none of these pages should not have real content, but should only have teaser information for either the itinerary of the city or region in question. However there should be references in the appropriate article help pages suggesting that people add their articles to the appropriate.

The general hierarchy would be something like (Brackets indicate example of itinerary/destination to be include in page:

Not all of these would have their own articles. They may simply be headings/sub-headings within an article. These should also be limited to "world Class" destinations for the catagory that is those that travellers interested in the subject consider "must see" destinations.

I'm not set on the title Travel Planning and would like ideas for a better name for the top level of this hierarchy. Note that I think it is important that it be linked to on the main page of Wikitravel.

Articles are only useful if travellers can find them, and we should make multiple ways of finding articles. -- Webgeer 14:32, Jul 27, 2004 (EDT) (Heavily edited at 21:15, July 27, 2004)

I think the proposal sounds pretty good. This "fields of pursuit" and "calendar" travelling is a great idea I think. Looking at the itineraries I think there are too many categories. For example, Cross Country Trips and Riding the Rail: What if there is a rail crossing the country (bad example, I know but I think it can make clear what I want to say)? I don't know what's the best solution but listing them by destination, for example, doesn't seem to be totally irresponsible to me. On the title, what about something like "Travelling (*) a topic/theme" (*) put it the correct preposition *g*. --EBB 03:59, 30 Jul 2004 (EDT)

Other Ways of Seeing Travel Hierarchy

I think it would be nice to add a hierarchy for other ways of seeing travel. See my complete proposal at Wikitravel talk:Other ways of seeing travel. I would like some comments on it before I start working on it. I also wonder if somebody can come up with a better name for the top level of the hierarchy than my Travel Planning name. -- Webgeer 01:37, Jul 30, 2004 (EDT)

So, first off, I'd say that the whole point of Wikitravel:other ways of seeing travel is that whatever system of organization we have, there will be stuff outside that system that we should include in our guide. It's the Godel Theorem of Wikitravel.

Lastly, I think we need to be really careful about travel topics, as they're a slippery slope. We could easily become a "travel encyclopedia" if we over-concentrate on travel topics. But we're making a travel guide -- a practical reference work. --Evan 09:37, 30 Jul 2004 (EDT)

I don't intead that this system would actually contain much real information. It would just be new pointers to the articles in the geographical hierarcy. For example if I wanted to find out where is a good place to go scuba diving, rather than doing a search and sorting through all of the articles that mention scuba diving, I would instead go to the Travel Plannning hierarchy and go down Travel Planning->Participatory sports->Scuba Diving and this would give a list of the best scuba diving destinations in the world. I do not intend that it contain any information about Scuba Diving (except as required to deving catagories). I never intended to include Travel Topics in this hierarcy at all. That already has a hieararcy.

Another way to look at this is as a well edited index. Travel guides often have these types of things at the back of the travel guide.

I like the idea as I think it would make the guides a lot more browsable. -- Webgeer 12:18, Jul 30, 2004 (EDT)

I'm like this idea in the long run once we have a big enough set of stuff in the travel articles. But I'd rather postpone it (and other slopes) until we have a more complete guide. -- Colin 13:22, 30 Jul 2004 (EDT)

City Theme Pages

What would people think if we compiled a few "theme" pages for truly major cities, that would summarise the otherwise dispersed sights and activities relevant to that theme for travellers.....? I'm thinking London, for example, could be well-served by a "Literary London" page, summarising details of famous writers' residences, literary museums, significant libraries, specialist bookstores, significant literary locations, literary tours, etc etc. All of which London has a massive amount. Everything from Chaucer and Shakespeare through to Dickens and on to Monica Ali (Brick Lane). The same could be done for musicians, artists, inventors, etc. if there was sufficient interest. Other 'world' cities like Paris, Berlin, Rome, Cairo and New York could also benefit. Comments / suggestions? Pjamescowie 16:50, 30 Sep 2004 (EDT)

I think that's a rocking idea. I'm really excited about it. I think doing specialist guides to destinations is an important way to see travel. Goth Los Angeles, Texas for rockhounds, etc. My main concern is managing the balance between the "general" guides and the theme guides. What would go on Literary London that wouldn't go on London? And vice versa? If you don't mind the possibility of going down some wrong paths at first (and, hey, isn't that the fun part?), maybe we should start Literary London and see where it goes.

Actually, I take that back -- maybe it'd be easier to tackle a less daunting city at first, to see how it works. What about, say... Literary Dublin? --Evan 17:08, 30 Sep 2004 (EDT)

Glad you like the idea. I don't mind tackling London first - lots of scope, and the city I know best in this respect. (Dublin is also an excellent suggestion however!) In terms of balance, I think you will find some considerable overlap between the standard city pages and the theme pages, the only difference being that the theme pages will consolidate on one page all / most of the items of interest to that particular theme, which otherwise would be dispersed throughout the various standard pages and therefore significantly more difficult to track down. Literary London, for example, will draw significantly on the pages for the City, Southwark, Bloomsbury, the West End, etc etc, selecting out the relevant detail and providing more detailed content. We'll need to ensure that basic return links exist back to these areas so that literary travellers, for example, can also find a place to eat, sleep, get a drink, etc. Sound OK? Pjamescowie 17:27, 30 Sep 2004 (EDT)